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Abstract

We demonstrate the generation of 9.8±0.3 fs laser pulses with a peak power exceeding one terawatt at 30 Hz repetition rate, using optical parametric chirped pulse amplification. The amplifier is pumped by 140 mJ, 60 ps pulses at 532 nm, and amplifies seed pulses from a Ti:Sapphire oscillator to 23 mJ/pulse, resulting in 10.5 mJ/pulse after compression while amplified fluorescence is kept below 1%. We employ grating-based stretching and compression in combination with an LCD phase-shaper, allowing compression close to the Fourier limit of 9.3 fs.

Beam profile images of the relay-imaged 140 mJ pump beam at the power amplifier (left) and the 10.5 mJ OPA output beam (right). The latter is slightly cut off on the left due to spatial constraints in setting up the relay imaging, without excluding any important features.

Left: Spectra of the input seed pulses (black curve), and the OPCPA output pulses after compression (green curve). The slow modulation results from phase-matching effects in the power-amplifier, while the faster modulation is presumably caused by a synchronization artefact of the scanning spectrum analyzer used for this measurement. Dashed black curve: seed spectrum 50 times enlarged for clarity. Red curve: spectral phase of the compressed output pulses measured using SPIDER. The deviation from zero at wavelengths longer than 900 nm is caused by limitations of the shaper, see text. Right: Temporal profile of the compressed output pulse (green curve) and temporal phase (red curve).